A travesty. A sham. A mockery of the great game of basketball. Indy did the All-Star Weekend right, but the players didn't do the event any favors

For the first time, one of the teams scored more than 200 points. Yippee. It was trash.

After the All-Star farce had ended, NBA commissioner Adam Silver put the whole high-scoring mess in perspective. After a week in which he was asked constantly about fixing the All-Star Game and the explosion in offense around the league, Silver looked like a disappointed dad when he turned to team captain Giannis Antetokounmpo and said, “To the Eastern Conference All-Stars, you scored the most points, well, congratulations.”

This was Silver’s nightmare. After an otherwise wonderful week for the city and the state, the weather notwithstanding, we saw once again that the worst part of All-Star Weekend is the actual game itself. For some reason that I can’t begin to fathom, this generation of NBA stars can’t be bothered to take the game semi-seriously or play a modicum of defense.

If Luka Doncic moved any more slowly, he would have been in reverse. Dame Lillard, who took 27 shots in an obvious attempt to win the MVP (over Tyrese Haliburton, who finished second in the MVP voting), was hoisting and occasionally making half-court shots. There were some moments of levity, like Nikola Jokic’s twin efforts to dunk the ball (unsuccessfully, by the way), but for the most part, this was an insult to the NBA and the host city of Indianapolis. And, of course, there was Haliburton hitting five straight 3-pointers in a 15-point, 92-second flurry that had the crowd howling.

This was like showing up at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and doing donuts on the Yard of Bricks.